01.23.11
United States of Steve Ballmer
Summary: In addition to private meetings with Bill Gates, President Obama plays a role in serving Microsoft’s interests
OVER the past couple of years and even more than that (ahead of the 2008 elections) we have covered incidents where Steve Ballmer went to the White House for private meetings with President Obama. These red carpet trips were not intended to help the American population, they were intended to benefit a monopoly abuser which is currently terrorising rivals such as Google, in more than a single nefarious way.
We have a wiki page about Microsoft’s connections in government and included there are links not just about Bill Gates’ many visits to the White House and lobbying via the Gates Foundation [1, 2, 3, 4] (he goes there uninvited sometimes) but also a reminder that Obama was paid more personally by Microsoft executives and their wives (including the Ballmers).
“Obama cites piracy data from Ballmer in comments on Hu visit,” argues a Microsoft booster in a report about incidents we will probably expand on later this year:
When Steve Ballmer talks, President Obama listens, apparently.
The Microsoft CEO is among the corporate executives in Washington, D.C., today for the visit of President Hu of China. As always, trade between the two nations is one of the big topics on the agenda, and Obama talked at one point about the need for a “level playing field when it comes to our trading partners.”
Yesterday the following video was circulating, mentioning Steve Ballmer in relation to Obama’s diplomacy and policy-making. Remember that at one point some years ago John McCain considered making Ballmer the American ambassador to China (what would the Chinese have to say?). █
twitter said,
January 23, 2011 at 12:06 pm
Another government bailout for Microsoft? Where would the company be without subsidies, government purchases, or purchases from other government favorites? Those hand outs, while obnoxious waste of taxpayer money, pale next to the legal protection given binary files, aka copyright, and the ongoing war against sharing that threatens everyone’s our right to software freedom, publication, free speech, due process, assembly and so on and so forth. Microsoft is more at home in Communist China.